I am interested in growing winter wheat to supply a bakery in our area, without using fertilizer or chemicals. Is there anyone on the porch who understands the best ways to rotate crops with wheat, and what other cash crops will be involved? I understand that some farmers will frost seed a legume over the wheat to suppress weeds and provide a nitrogen source. What else is important? I know the old rotation of COWS (corn, oat, wheat, sod), but if my main goal is wheat, would there be any point to growing a heavy feeder like corn? If anyone knows of some resources, or would be willing to correspond with me sometime, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you.

And Charlie, I would be interested in finding out what you learn and perhaps talking you into doing a story for the magazine about it.

Joe

Mammoth Red Clover is the best natural way to add and fix nitrogen on the soil. Sown at the same time as winter wheat. When you take grain off then straw you can graze, hay or plow down or all three. You don't have to grow corn in that rotation.

I'm not organic, but a friend and neighbor is. The best ways he's found is to to get a good stand of legumes(mainly clover). Then plow it under in late summer and get a good stand of wheat. If you get a good enough stand of wheat it will help keep weeds down. As far as rotation, there is a lot of soybeans to cover crop(rye). Then to clover. After a couple of cutting of clover it is plowed down.
I'm not an expert, this is just what I've seen.

Dave

Charlie,
I believe you have to have your farm certified by one of the organic organizations in order to claim the crops grown are organic. They should have a list of members and know which ones will be open to sharing best practices.
Hope it goes well for you,
Brian

Joe, I'll be sure to take notes and let you know if there is enough content for an article.

Don't follow wheat after corn at all. It can give you vomitoxin through scab. It also might be to low in protein to make good bread. Here it is subject to winter kill; the best way for this area is to no till into canola or flax stubble. Don't use canola because of volunteer canola.

I also heard from the flour mill in Southwestern Wisconsin that Vomitoxin was more prevalent in wheat that was sown after corn.

Here in eastern Wa, dryland farmers tried it but the yeild was so low they didn't even harvest it.

The COWS rotation was typical in the "old" days. You grew wheat and sowed clover to create nitrogen for the corn. You grew corn to feed to the cattle, you raised cattle to pay the bills. Once you get you wheat sowed you need to drag it to dig out weeds, you can drag it every three days even after the wheat breaks the ground.

I would think there would also be a concern to be careful not to use genetic modified seed.

This is in reference to the comments about growing wheat before and/or corn. I live in Eastern North Carolina and grow a lot of wheat. Probably 98% of the wheat is grown in a corn-wheat-soybean two year rotation. After the corn is harvested, the heat will be drilled in. When harvesting the wheat in May/June the drill will literally be following the combines putting the soybeans in the ground. The soybeans are harvested in late fall, early winter and the rotation starting again the next spring with the planting of the corn. I have never heard of a problem with Vomitoxin in out wheat.

Please excuse the mistakes as I hit the button before proof reading. Should have been "before and/or after corn". Also should have been wheat not "heat".

harvey--
far as i know gmo wheat has not been released yet

I raised a quarter acre of wheat for my own use a few years ago. We did it all the "old fashion" way. Plowed,disked,and drilled with horses. Cradled it,shocked, and stooked it. Then just as I was about to thresh it someone brought the possibility that it may be GMO. I took it all down from the stack and bedded stalls with it,grain and all. Then a few years later I learned there is supposedly no such thing as GMO wheat. I found that the aleopathic nature of the wheat did a great job of weeding the ground however and it did solve a problem of removing weeds that had up til then been a big problem on that particular field. I followed the wheat with alfalfa and the alfalfa with turnips that was all grazed by pigs. I'm sure there was better rotations but this really worked in our case. Year before last I helped one of our Amish neighbors raise a similar patch of winter wheat. He purchased certified organic seed however where I had just used cover crop winter wheat. He had a good yield and followed the wheat with clover and then produce.After having read a bit more about it, I do think we will try raising wheat for our own use again but haven't put much thought into a rotation as yet.

This question could betray my ignorance...but is there any reason why you couldn't frost seed alfalfa instead of red clover, and still get the same benefit? In my area I think alfalfa is more valuable as a hay crop than red clover. I'm just thinking about how best you could go from winter wheat to a hay crop. I know people use pure alfalfa as a hay, but I've never heard of 100% clover hay.

Alfalfa will get you the same result. It would be easier to sell alfalfa rather than clover. The point everyone is making is to plant a legume and build nitrogen into you soil before you plant wheat.

Dave

Frost seeding alfalfa is not very productive method. The cost of seed would make that decision for you.